Enormous ancient sea reptile identified from amateur fossil find

[Still Waters]

Scientists have identified what was probably the largest marine reptile ever to swim in the seas - a creature longer than two, nose-to-nose buses.

The creature lived around 202 million years ago alongside the dinosaurs.

Its fossilised jawbone was found in 2016 by a fossil hunter on a beach in Somerset, UK. In 2020 a father and daughter found another similar jawbone.

Experts now say the fossils are from two giant ichthyosaur reptiles, which could have been 25m long.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68831349

[pellinore]

To put things into a bit of perspective, although some dinosaurs were huge, and some land mammals like the giant sloths were whoppers, and the Moa and the Haast's Eagle would have kept a KFC in meat for a year, these ichthyosaurs were not the largest sea creatures to have existed- they were tiddlers compared to the largest mammal that ever existed- and it is still alive and well! Probably the biggest mystery of all is why we haven't hunted the blue whale to extinction, like most animals which are interesting and curious.

[quiXilver]

Wow, what a find!

Thanks for sharing.

[Antigonos]

The article states that in life the specimens of the new ichthyosaur species would have been larger than the giant pliosaur recently found in the Dorset cliffside. 

25 meters, or roughly 75 feet long. That’s an awesome marine reptile. Early paleontologists would be blown away by a discovery like this.